Wireless Router: Which is the most reliable?

I'm partial to Netgear out of the consumer oriented brands.  Nice reliability.  I actually quite dislike Linksys and Belkin.

 

I have no technically specific reasons.  I just know when I've battled network gear failures and those two mentioned above come out at the top of the "asking for trouble" list.

 

Needless to say, there will no doubt be plenty of people who can report trouble-free operation any of the brands out there, so you can take my experiences as just a few of thousands.

Had a Belkin but it was slow wired.  Wifi was practically useless.

 

Bought the new Linksys EA4500 router a few weeks ago - amazing.  My house is wired to the hilt now (2 floors plus basement) and it just smokes speed-wise.  Bit expensive, but well worth it.  You want this one.

AirPort Extreme.

 

It's expensive. It's overpriced. Reliability? That's what the price is for.

Netgear user since the days of 10mbit (and still have that hardware in working order!), recently got a Cisco/Linksys (it doesn't say Linksys anywhere but on the box) gigabit router, E2700 or something along those lines. I don't use the WiFi component, but for the week it was enabled, it was bulletproof. So I'd go with either of those brands.

Stay far, far away from D-Link and Belkin.
Edited by obobskivich - 5/11/12 at 8:50pm

In terms of reliability? 

Apple and Netgear

 

and...then everything else is tied.

 

For routers these days Netgear, and Apple are what I look at . Currently I would look at the Netgear as the Apple Extreme has not been updated ..fully other than more powerful antenna's 

 

Linksys has gone to....you know where. Belkin is moving up but they are somewhat like the HP of this world..meaning they are really moving forward with great ideas and some thigns actually work but quality control is still an issue as they are cheaper. 

 

And D-Link doesn't have as many problems as Belkin however they aren't as imaginitive and is..the cheaper man's Netgear.

 

So just look at Netgear...unless you have a few Apple products. Then looking at an Apple Extreme would be best

 

I have had experience with all the routers I listed..not all the routers from the brands but enough. And I personally own an Airport Extreme and Express

I guess there is some cycling going on here and maybe more models then brands. I have owned several of unreliable netgear, linksys and Dlink routers that I had to rma. I don´t know if they have trouble handling 100 gb internet connections or something lol.

 

However I have been really lucky with the D-link 655. I know you should go for the 250$ routers you don´t get quality when going for bang for buck but hard to resist lol. But it has worked for years at my fathers house which now have 1 gb internet so I got one for myself. Never any issue whatsoever either his or mine.

Edited by oqvist - 5/12/12 at 12:03am

always had good experiences with netgear stuff

Yeah so bascically unless you really need Apple's features and what not. Netgear will do fine. Netgear still has problems..but their reliability is still higher than other brands.

 

Don't be fooled by the Netgear 600 thing. You CAN'T just combine the two bands together. Which is what they did to get that number. 

Routers are the most unreliable pieces of junk other than Printers. Very few of them last more than a year for me.

I recently tested about 5 of them trying to stream HD reliably to my upstairs TV without much luck. The Belkin one I tried had the best signal and speed but kept having connection issues.

 

I also had a router once that after every two weeks I'd have to unplug it in order to get it to work.

 

I actually had a linksys router die once. Nothing I did could fix it.

 

The worst router I ever had was one with built in VOIP for Vonage.

 

Right now i'm using a Netgear router. Stupid easy to install. Go to specific IP address once connected and you're done.

 

BTW I don't know if this is common knowledge but I've heard Wireless-G has better range than Wireless-N.

 

Don't get me started on ink jet printers....

 

I use a Brother Laser printer and it's been going non-stop for at least 5 years.

 

Battery Backups (UPS) are annoying too. I had one take one for the team and it costs $75 to replace it's stupid battery!!

Yeah both Routers and Printers have a lot of problems, for me I have never had any devastating problems other than a Netgear that would keep resetting it's settings every few months.

 

They just have a lot of problems if we think about it from another point of view,yes. But they also work.

 

Streaming sucks..it only works sometimes well and sometimes results aren't producable. Due to port forwarding and other stuff that is just really annoying or itself and bugs yes. That sucks but they are still good if we look at it differently

 

Yes.. I get stupid paper jams a lot on my ink jet :/

 

I have a UPS too. It has an annoying computer interface that doesn't work.

That's been my experience as well. I have no sciency explanation other than my netbook and other hardware will more consistently grab 11G than 11N even if both are "available" unless I'm more or less ontop of the AP.

It depends on how advanced you are. Unless you have a specific need both the apple or netgear will do. Im an enthusiast so setting up or using both or any is not a problem at all with me but I would say apple is easer to srtup, use and has less(not all) of a chance of setup problems. The new revision has more powerful attenas than mine.

Look at its feature sets online for both devices. I can guarantee you right now that all of the extremes features work and work well. Netgears are more iffy.

Also keep in mind if you get an airport express you can extend your network and use it as a very good audiophile music streamer as it allows digital out so you can attach your own dac and amp. Its local streaming through airplay and allows for up to cd quality streams. As in uncompressed lossless 16/44.1 so its very good. It can extend your network as a new acess point, can have a wired cable attached to it, wireless priniting(i think), and is ALSO a router for $100.